New Safety Standard in PRS (Private Rented Sector)

The Scottish Government is gradually introducing clearer standards for safety in the Private Rented Sector (PRS). Most buy to let property let out long term must meet these standards.

Many landlords often feel that the industry is becoming over regulated. Safety of tenants is surely something we all agree should be paramount and having clear guidance on safety is surely a good thing.

We've been arguing for years that the legislation on safety in let property is out of date, disparate and hard for landlords to understand their actual obligations.

As an agent we have proactively protected our landlords by meeting their obligations to provide a safe property but it has not always been possible to get a definitive answer and sometimes we have had to make judgements on our landlords behalf.

With so much information available we have never felt this is good enough so we have campaigned with others to have clearer standards set out by the Scottish Government and to be fair they have been listening. Some of the guidance is still a bit too complicated for our liking but the government argues that safety issues are complex.

There are new standards relating to smoke alarms, electrical safety, carbon monoxide and legionella bacteria.

Having always insisted on mains smoke alarms in every property we are a bit surprised and disappointed that this has been extended to have multiple alarms fitted in all let property retrospectively. We understand the intention is to make rented property meet similar standards to new built property using the building standards as reference points.

We've tried to set out clearly what the current requirements are in the attached PDF which is free for you to download below.

We have also attached a copy of a guide to legionella bacteria and risk assessment form prepared by the Scottish Association of Landlords (SAL).

We obviously cannot be held liable for any guidance contained in this website or attached documents. We rely ultimately on our appointed and regulated contractors to decide how a property should meet the required safety standards.